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HOCKEY; Opening Day for N.H.L.'s First Commissioner

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The first week of the shortest month of the year offers professional hockey a rare share of the American sports spotlight. Football is finally finished, and the baseball players won't report for spring training for another couple of weeks. The sports news media poke their collective heads above ground, see Charles Barkley's shadow and realize there are six more weeks of college basketball until the Final Four.

So the stage was set yesterday at National Hockey League headquarters in Manhattan, where Gary Bettman took office as the first commissioner in the league's 76-year history.

His inauguration didn't include a swearing-in ceremony or an inspirational poem, but it was just as important to the progressive constituency of owners who hired him after 15 years of the muddled regime of former President John Ziegler. His 'Do' List

Bettman's mission is simple: Put a stop to labor unrest; sell the product in television's mainstream marketplace; change the violent image of the game; curb salary inflation; force enlightened self-interest on reluctant, old-fashioned owners; expand contacts with European developmental leagues and markets; settle the divisive issue of possible Olympic involvement, and help launch several new expansion teams.

If Bettman can do all this, he will be a bargain at his salary of more than $1 million a year.

"I think there is a perception that the sport needs to be improved from a public relations standpoint and a marketing standpoint," said Bettman, 40, who was hired from the National Basketball Association after 12 years as its third in command. "Some of the criticism and negativism has been overblown. We've got a great product that is underappreciated."

The negative perception of hockey, Bettman said, is "a pretty good snowball, some might call it an avalanche."

When someone noted that NBC showed the Super Bowl on Sunday without promoting the N.H.L.'s All-Star game, which it will carry Saturday afternoon from Montreal, Bettman didn't directly comment, but said: "Obviously, I was envious of the attention the Super Bowl got. We're going to have to improve the way we are perceived, the way we are followed, the way we look. We can be worthy of attention. The goal is attention so that NBC would love to promote us during the Super Bowl the way it did the N.B.A, for example." To Be Considered

Bettman spoke with reporters in his office and on a conference call with points from Ottawa to Tulsa. He went over issues he has been discussing continuously since his hiring was announced in December. He will keep an open mind, he said, to suggestions of rules changes about eliminating the center red line as a restraint to passing and about further toughening the rules against fighting. He is concerned that the Edmonton and Minnesota franchises might move, he said, but he hopes they don't. Yes, he'd like to see more fans in the seats in Hartford, Long Island and New Jersey.

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He already has talked informally with Bob Goodenow, the head of the players union, and hopes to soon move the dialogue toward serious negotiation aimed at developing a true partnership before next season.

He might consider a draft lottery, like the one in the N.B.A., and a conference-based playoff formula, like the one in the N.B.A., and a salary cap, also like the N.B.A.'s. But for those nervous Canadians and hard-core fans in the United States, Bettman said he won't "disturb the basic framework."

"We want to expand our fan base," he said, "but we don't want to turn off our existing fans." If the N.H.L. imitates the N.B.A., Bettman said, that's fine "if that means to be more successful and go through a boom period." That period might not include Olympic participation. Bettman said the Board of Governers will discuss that issue this weekend at the meetings in Montreal, but a decision might again be postponed.

He said he wants to make the game "user-friendly," and part of that means selling it to and through television. The Conservative Party

No one mentioned the Chicago owner William Wirtz by name, but it was clear that a question about the league's old-line leadership alluded to the former chairman of the Board of Governors, who heads the conservative faction that has lost power.

"I'm going to talk to them, I'm going to communicate well," Bettman said, referring to conservative owners. "It may be that we are going to head in new, progressive directions that will make sense to every one immediately. For some, it may take a little more time."

Fighting, despite an attempted crackdown this season, is making a comeback, as some referees refuse to enforce rules against instigators and punching specialists follow their own agenda to get around the spirit of the law. Bettman called fighting "something we need to look at" before telling the players: "This is the amount, these are the rules. We're going to enforce the rules and put it to rest, do it on a buttoned-up basis."

A version of this article appears in print on February 2, 1993, on Page B00009 of the National edition with the headline: HOCKEY; Opening Day for N.H.L.'s First Commissioner. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe